Life Without Love
by passgocollect200
Summary: No one deserves to love if the Joker cannot. Jade never really wanted to prove him wrong though...
1. The Empty Shell

CHAPTER 1

"The smiles are bleeding on my wall.  
The jacket holds.  
No crawling, no crawling.  
We must be a civilized young lady.  
Do as your told.  
Drink the soup, but do not slurp.  
Don't look at the smiles.  
He doesn't like that.  
NONONONONO  
No.  
Whispering will get you nowhere my dearest darling.  
Cats and dogs... Raining on a tin roof.  
Just let me out on good behavior, and I won't hurt the baby.  
Baby.  
My baby.  
Not my baby.  
Her baby.  
Not his, and not his.  
I could tell the tale, but those smiles keep watching.  
They know that the baby is gone.  
He knows.  
He knows.  
He knows.  
Plaster under the fingernails does not become a lady little missy.  
You musn't scratch at the walls.

He'll hear. And then he'll know. The baby is gone. He took it.

Gone with the fire that would only burn and burn."

Jade stepped onto the dirty sidewalk, averting her eyes from the figures that filled the insides of the window paines.

A dark sign rose from the ground at the beginning of the short path that lead inside the decrepit building.

Arkham.

She sighed as if that one breath could wipe away the reason why she was there.

But it did not, so she continued to trudge toward the front door. A large clock on the wall just inside the doors told her that she only had twenty minutes left of the visiting hours, but those twenty minutes stretched out longer than an eternity before her.

The lobby of Arkham was white and pristine, making the television stick out with its dark images of crime in the city. Of course it would be turned on the news.  
Everyone watches the news in this city.

"Excuse me miss, but how can I help you?"

She turned toward a large woman sitting behind the plexiglass cage of a reception desk.

_If by help you mean you can provide some hard liquor, then yes. I could use quite a bit of help right now.__  
_  
"Actually, I'm here to see my- someone. Her name is Maria. Maria Aiden."

The woman's face fell for a fraction of a second.

"I see."

_Wonderful.__  
_  
Jade tried to... grin for the nurse.

_I want to see this woman just about as much as you do, so if we could just get this over with, then that would be great.__  
_  
She followed the nurse down the hallways of the asylum, trying to close her ears to the crude and obscene remarks that the patients would scream through the windows of their cells.

Jade had been coming here for years now, but the long walk to the isolation room never got any easier.

She glanced down at the flower in her hands.

A daisy.  
She always asked for a daisy, and Jade would always bring her one.  
And then she'd watch as Maria would pluck each petal off the stem and eat it.  
Watching Jade.  
Waiting to see if Jade would stop her.

Jade and the nurse rounded the corner that led to Maria's cell.

She was waiting.

She sat in the center of the cell, completely still, staring at the wall in front of her through the bars.

Jade dropped the daisy through a space in the bars.

Maria didn't move.

All Jade could do was watch her in silence, and try to find a trace of the woman that she once was.

She didn't see anything though.

There was nothing of Jade's mother behind those vacant eyes.


	2. The Lost Boy

CHAPTER 2

_Maria walked into the bank, smiling at a man who held the door for her.__  
__People always seem to be so nice when you have a baby in your arms.__  
__She beamed at the warm body as she cradled him, walking up to a line, and waiting for a teller to call her to their window.__  
__She was watching her grandson for Jade, barely a chore when all a person had to do was look into his bright green eyes and fall in love.__  
__Despite his unfortunate origins, he was turning out to be a perfectly happy and healthy boy.__  
__You see, Maria's daughter had been raped almost a year ago, and Jade decided that she couldn't kill such an innocent creature growing inside of her.__  
__Even when he was born though, Jade had almost lost him. Complications in his heart and lungs had led doctors to perform an emergency operation that saved his life and left him with scars running along his chest and back.__  
__Maria was all too happy to stand in as a caretaker, because Jade was just finishing up her last year in high school.__  
__She frowned, thinking of the pain that Jade would have to go through in order to get through college. The separation of a mother from her baby could only hurt Jade, but without a proper education, how could Jade ever provide for the boy?__  
__Anyways, Maria was perfectly capable of watching the boy while his mother was at school.__  
__Maria rocked the infant in her arms, whispering his name as he slept, "Leo."__  
__BOOM__  
__The doors to the bank burst open as a thin man waltzed through them.__  
__He was holding a gun.__  
__"Hello ladies and gentlemen."__  
__His voice was almost as frightening as the scars and clown make-up that covered his face.__  
__Maria stood in front of him, shocked into silence as men in clown masks ran through the room.__  
__She realized too late that everyone else in the bank had dropped to the floor, and she was the only one standing before the crazed man.__  
__And then Leo started to cry.__  
__"Awwwwwww. Look fellas! It's a little bouncing baby boy." He laughed to himself, striding toward Maria, holding out his arms.__  
__"Come on lady! I wanna hold him!"__  
__Maria clutched the infant to her chest, her eyes widening in fear.__  
__"I promise I'm great with kids!" He wheezed with laughter.__  
__Tears were running down Maria's face, as she shook her head and whispered "No" over and over again.__  
__"Okay lady, I didn't want to have to do this..." He pulled a bundle of wires out of his jacket. __  
__Wires attached to a timer.__  
__"Give me the kid." There were gasps and screams as he waved the bomb in the air.__  
__"Why?!?" Maria pleaded.__  
__"Because I said so, but you said no!" __  
__At that, he wrenched the boy from her arms and placed the bomb in her shaking hands.__  
__"Now don't let go! Hehehehehe…"__  
__He disappeared, and as Maria threw the bomb away from herself, it detonated, burning the skin on the front of her body to a crisp.__Three weeks later, she was admitted to Arkham.__  
__She would whisper and mutter about smiles on the wall, and seemed to regress into a childlike state.__  
__Jade was left without a mother, and without her son.__  
__The worst part was that Maria couldn't tell Jade that Leo was very much alive.__  
__No matter how many times Jade would ask, Maria could not tell her whether or not her son was dead.__  
__Jade would come weekly, trying to find a shred of sanity in her mother that would reveal the fate of her baby, but Maria was too far gone.__Jade could only keep trying, as each week she lost a little hope.__Would she ever find out what happened to her baby boy?_


	3. The Man Who Could Not Love

CHAPTER 3

BANG.

Dead guy in a clown mask on the floor.

BANG.

Dead guy in a clown mask on the floor.

_If they wouldn't get in my way when I'm walking, _BANG

_then they'd still be around._The Joker paused as he staggered down the hall, noticing that the idiotic idle chatter that had once assaulted his ears was gone.  
His goons had all run off to their little rooms.

_Scaredy cats.__  
_  
He chuckled, giggled, and guffawed as he continued on his merry little way toward the kitchen.

On his way, he passed the rec. room, peeking inside and seeing that someone had left the T.V. on.

"Am I the only one in this place who thinks about conserving energy? We need to save the earth!" He exclaimed to an empty couch, his laughter growing.

Someone had been watching Shakespeare in Love- the box sat in the middle of the coffee table.

His smile faded.

"What pansy brought this shit in?" He roared to the empty room.

_"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"__  
_  
He glanced at the screen, watching as a girl in drag started to read some letter.  
He sat down on the ratty couch.

_"Thou art more lovely and more temperate."__  
_  
She looked close to tears, but she was happy.

_Happy people don't cry.__  
_  
There were emotions that the Joker knew.

Pain.  
Suffering.  
Loathing.  
Anger.  
Fear.  
Excitement.

Then there were emotions that he did not know.

Pity.  
Guilt.  
Remorse.  
Compassion.  
Love.

He could not understand the passion of a love sonnet.  
He did not know any joys that could bring out tears.  
He could not imagine the...

CLANG

The Joker's head snapped to the intruder at the door, automatically aiming his gun at the person's head.

In the doorway, there stood a twelve year old boy, pale as a sheet.  
He froze where he crouched, his fingers inches away from the metal bowl of popcorn that he had dropped.

"Sit down Boomer."

"Okay Boss."

The boy left the popcorn where it fell, and went to sit with the Joker on the couch.

"Is this your movie kid?"

"No."

"Liar."

They sat together and continued to view the film until the Joker interrupted again.

"She looks afraid. Why is she afraid?"

Boomer almost jumped out of his skin. He had always been an antsy kid.

He looked at the screen again.

Shakespeare and Viola were naked, gazing at each other on her bed.

"She's afraid of loosing him. She's afraid of opening up. She's afraid of the future."

"Why? It's just sex." The Joker sneered.

"Because she loves him." Boomer mumbled. He was quite put out that the Joker didn't like his favorite movie.

"Are you a homo, kid?"

"No!" Boomer exclaimed defensively, his voice cracking.

"What's so great about this love shit anyways?" The Joker asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"It's supposed to be the greatest feeling in the world. People die for love."

"Huh."

The Joker left Boomer sitting on the couch and went back to his office.

_Isn't love supposed to be a common thing? __  
_  
He stepped into his office.

_Why don't I love anyone?__  
_**_Because no one would ever love you._**_**  
**__Why not?__  
_**_Have you looked in a mirror lately?_**_**  
**_  
His hands flew to his scars.

_I bet I could make someone love me.__  
_**_You don't know how to love._**_**  
**__It seems simple enough.__  
_  
He continued to think to himself- to think of a plan.

All he needed was a girl.

A girl that could fall in love with him.

She would fall in deep, and then he'd break her.

No one deserved to love if the Joker could not.


	4. The Only Witness

CHAPTER 4

Jade sat against the wall in front of her mother's cell, staring into eyes that seemed to look right through her.

It was cold.

"Mom?"

The creature crouched in the straight jacket did not reply.

"Mom. It's Jade. Don't you recognize me?" Jade asked again. Jade asked her mother this every time she would come and visit.

"A propper lady does not slurp at the dinner table. And that's manners." Maria spat.

"Maria. What happened to Leo?"

Maria started to moan.

"What happened to my baby?" Jade pleaded with the empty shell across from her.

"I said no, so he burned us. Burned, burned, burned."

Jade couldn't help but look at the charred skin that covered her mother's body.  
If that was what happened to the front of her mother, then what could have happened if she had a baby in her arms?

A sob ripped its way through Jade's throat as she imagined a burnt and disfigured lump where her baby once was. The tears that rimmed her eyes now spilled onto her plain grey shirt.

Despite the impossibility of her son surviving the explosion, Jade had clung to hope.  
The cameras at the bank had been destroyed before the disaster, and apparently her mother had been the only one to survive.  
The only survivor who witnessed the whole event  
And she was stark raving mad.

Jade felt rage begin to boil in her stomach, seeping through her body until she felt like she could spit poison across the room.  
"Where is my son?" She growled at the thing that she had once called her mother.

Maria started laughing.

Jade got up, clutching the bars of iron.

"Where is my son you fucking bitch?!?!" She screamed at the woman.

Maria laughed harder.

"WHERE IS MY SON?" The words scraped through her throat, echoing down the halls of the facility.

"Big boom! Baby boomer! Boom boom. Booming baby!" Maria cackled, drool and blood dripping between her yellowed teeth.

Jade let out a wrenching scream, rattling the bars of her mother's cage as security entered the hallway.

It took three men to pull her away from the bars of the cell, and Jade didn't stop crying, even when they dumped her outside on a wet sidewalk.

It was raining.

But she just sat as strangers would pass her by, not noticing the young woman and her eyes red with tears.


	5. The Easy Way Out

CHAPTER 5

Jade was lost.  
She had never gone walking around Gotham before.  
It had always been taxi, school, taxi, work, and taxi home, so when she began walking aimlessly around town, she quickly found herself in a seedy neighborhood.  
She wasn't in the mindset to think about directions though.  
All she could feel was the rain pounding against her body, and the depression that was constricting her lungs.

She passed a pawn shop, with its antiques and useless junk cluttering up the display window.  
She passed a Deli where a bunch of old men were sitting together in their loneliness.  
She passed an alleyway where two people were shooting up behind an old dumpster.  
She passed a gun shop, and she stopped.

It would be so easy.

Easier that taking a cab home.  
Easier than going to work the next day.  
Easier than making another visit to the asylum.

Click. Bang.  
And then no more.

Jade pushed the door open, a bell jingling to notify the owner that she had walked in.

A short balding man with greedy eyes looked at her from behind the counter.

She pulled out her credit card.

"I have three thousand dollars on this card. I need a gun."

He smiled.

And then his mouth dropped in horror.

"Ha ha ha ha he he he a-ho ho hooo..."

Jade turned, and three feet in front of her, there stood The Joker. Laughing.

She turned back to the man at the counter.

"Could you shoot me before he does?"


	6. The Joker's Girl

CHAPTER 6

Jade turned, and three feet in front of her, there stood the Joker. Laughing.

She turned back to the man at the counter.

"Could you shoot me before he does?"

She jumped as a sudden bang sounded, and when she opened her eyes, the man behind the counter was laying across the glass display case, while his brain was splattered against the wall.

She let out a sharp laugh, and turned back to the guy in the clown make-up.

"He didn't want to die. I did. Dumby dumb dumb."

She was practically delirious. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and she was developing a fever from walking in the rain for over two hours.

The lanky man in front of her started to get blurry, and her knees started to give out beneath her.

The Joker watched as the woman in front of him fell to the floor.

He was confused.

Since when do his victims ask to be killed?

"Boomer."

The small kid walked in from the doorway, scratching his nose under the clown mask.

"Get the other two clowns and take miss death wish to the car."

"What are you gonna do to her?"

"DID I TELL YOU TO ASK STUPID QUESTIONS?"

At that, Boomer got two of the Joker's other goons, and they carried her out of the store.

The Joker stuffed a few boxes of shells into his pockets, and followed them out.

He had found his girl.


	7. A Splitting Headache

CHAPTER 7

Jade was cold.

And hot.

And shivering.

And sweating.

And her head felt like it would crack open from the headache that woke her from her restless sleep.

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Jade heard a voice that separated itself from the ringing in her ears.

It was deep and rich, and accompanied by a cool touch on her burning forehead.

"Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare. She hadn't heard that sonnet since she was in high school.

It was a bit different when vocalized by this deep and velvet voice.

_I must still be asleep or hallucinating. Did I dream going to the asylum?__  
_

Then she remembered the Joker.

"Am I dead?" She asked the voice.

That's when the laughter started.  
The keening, mocking, and insane laughter.

Then there were footsteps leading away to a slamming door.

And then there was only quiet.

Jade had still not opened her eyes. If only she could go back to sleep, if she could live each day from dream to dream, then maybe she could make it.  
Her stomach churned at the thought of what tortures the Joker had in store for her.

Would he beat her? Maim her? Kill her slowly?

Would he make her wait until she would welcome death with open arms?

_________________________________

The Joker chuckled to himself as he swiped some white cake makeup across his forehead.

This was going to be too easy for him.

All he had to do was charm the girl. Make her feel like she was special, like she would be different.  
For goodness sake, he found her in a gun store for a one way ticket to the afterlife.  
He could smell her desperation for love and acceptance.

What a joke.  
Ha  
Ha  
Ha

After a little while, she would need _him_, love _him_.  
And then he could do it.  
End it.  
End her.  
Teach her that there is no such thing as _real _love.

There was one thing that the Joker hadn't anticipated though.  
He hadn't expected how easy it would be to slip into his old self.  
It was almost like he was a young man again as soon as he wiped off the clown face.  
He could almost pretend that there weren't any scars when she had subconsciously leaned her head into his palm.


End file.
